Practical MarTech: Managing Cross-Functional Buy-In For Large-Scale Changes
Practical MarTech: Managing Cross-Functional Buy-In For Large-Scale Changes
Because a Great Idea Alone is Worthless
The Uniform Code of Military Justice specifies Court Marshall for any officer who sends his solder into battle without a weapon.
There ought to be a similar protection for students, because students shouldn’t go out into life without the ability to communicate.
That’s because your success in life will be determined largely by your ability to speak, your ability to write, and the quality of your ideas—in that order.
—Patrick Winston “How to Speak” 2018, MIT Lecture
For almost a half century, Patrick Winston would open the MIT Spring semester to a lecture hall overflowing with ill-fitting, sweater-clad, generally engineering-oriented students with the same lecture beginning with the quoted lines above.
Despite a conspicuous lack of basic engineering curriculum, this class was extremely well-attended by students across departments—with good reason.
This single lecture is the distillation of an entire lifetime of practical experience.
If you haven’t seen his lecture, go to it now.
(Seriously, open a new tab now and check it out)
In 63 minutes, you’ll learn how to wield weapons of persuasion you don’t know you’ve been missing your entire career.
How Does Speaking Ability Affect MarTech?
Without being able to present your ideas, no one will know what you have to offer.
Without being able to present, no one will be convinced you’re right.
Without being able to present, people will brush you off.
MarTech leadership cannot be won solely by technical ability.
Successfully implementing a robust MarTech stack requires the ability to coordinate and cooperate.
Manage Buy-In
A-B-C.
A... Always, B... Be, C... Closing.
Always be closing.
ALWAYS BE CLOSING!
-Ricky Roma “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992)
Before you sell something new to a customer, before you set up any new technology backend, before you even figure out your team for building out a new technology setup—sell to your stakeholders.
I use the term stakeholders—not bosses—intentionally.
For any project, you’ll have to get buy-in from at least a few people.
That buy-in is often from your boss, company C-suite, or whoever manages the budget.
But that buy-in might be from an overloaded IT team, an unappreciated HR member, or someone else.
Even if you’re the decision maker that can say “Lets go ahead”, you still need to sell an idea to your stakeholders.
To successfully present your MarTech solutions, you need to sell your ideas to your stakeholders. To do that, you should:
Understand your audience(s)
Put together your value prop(s)
Pre-answer common questions
Present your solution
Ask for stakeholder support
Understand Your Audiences
If your IT team looks good when they look the most busy, then they’ll find a way to make themselves always look busy.
Anytime you need to get buy-in from other people, you need to understand what motivates them.
Make a list of all the people who need to be involved and ask “What’s In It For Me?” WIIFM.
Understand your audiences.
Understand their incentives.
Then put together a value prop that matches their needs to your project.
Put Together Your Value Prop(s)
Before you start talking to your stakeholders, refine your value proposition for them.
A value prop is a brief explanation of what value you can provide to the person you’re pitching it to.
A few tips:
Focus on outcomes, not features
Mention competitors / alternatives to illustrate why you chose an option
Make sure you match your states benefits to the needs you uncovered in the first step
An example of an internal MarTech value prop for an IT team is:
Your team spends about 10 hours a week responding to requests where people ask for extracts from various databases.
The future tech stack that I’m proposing to the C suite next week would include a self-service analytics tool that would free up your schedule by reducing the number of users asking for reports.
I recommended this tool because it will lay the foundation for future data analytics expansion without having to do a full refresh of our data pipelines like some of the alternatives would.
Pre-Answer Common Questions
The last step before pitching your new solutions to stakeholders is to make sure that you know the answers to common questions.
These questions can vary wildly based on the industry and projects, but there are common themes across most projects.
Consider your project’s particulars across themes like:
Budget and Staffing
Downstream Effects
Competing Initiatives
Time Available from Resources
Security and Compliance
Future Growth
A great list of common questions can be found in the article below from “Mastering MarTech”
Present Your Solution
You’ve done your preparation.
You’ve surveyed your audiences.
You’re on the calendar for your stakeholder.
Use the skills from Patrick Wilson’s aforementioned lecture to present your solutions persuasively.
Ask for Stakeholder Support
If the presentation goes well, go from transmission mode into receiving mode.
You’ve already given your piece.
Let the stakeholder(s) respond with any additional concerns, ideas, etc.
Ask for their advice, recommendations, and support.
Even if you don’t think all of their advice is good, it’s important to include some of it so that you can build a coalition of people who feel empowered, involved, and in control.
Kickoff the Project
With the strong support of stakeholders gathered and common questions pre-answered, it’s time to kickoff the project and move towards your better technology solution.
Good Luck!